DanielW:

I guess I was imprecise (unless you were kidding and I didn't get it) when I wrote "reading" in my post re: QuikScat passes. I suppose I should've written that if I were "interpreting" the actual QuikScat passes correctly, then there was no closed circulation. It does appear that that was the case, or that at least the QuickScat passes were ambiguous - as shown in the 5 am NHC advisory and your subsequent post of that advisory.

Amazing Irene is this far along (in terms of westward movement) and there is still some ambiguity as to whether there is an LLC at all. As I think Clark posted before, despite that ambiguity it makes sense that recon has not gone in, given the already-busy season, what is almost certain to come in terms of frequent recon flights into other storms down the road, and the lack of immediate threat from Irene.

But I am so curious about what a plane would find in there; although I do not want the government spending its (our) money on unnecessary flights, it's hard not to root for recon to be sent in there to determine (1) if there's a (low level) center (2) where the center is and (3) how strong Irene is.

-Brad